Super Bowl Committee right to reject NFL request

It will be tough enough for the Miami Dolphins to convince Miami-Dade voters to approve a hotel bed-tax increase to fund renovations at Sun Life Stadium.

Arrogant requests by the National Football League will only make it tougher.

That's why it's smart the South Florida Super Bowl committee late Friday reportedly rejected the NFL's request to exempt league employees from local hotel taxes as part of the deal if the area lands an upcoming Super Bowl.

Amazing.

Sometime soon, Miami-Dade voters will likely be asked to raise hotel taxes by one percent to help pay for $400 million in stadium renovations that the Dolphins say are essential to Miami's bid to host the 2016 Super Bowl.

To many, this is welfare for the rich. The not-exactly-poor NFL asking for tax-exempt hotel rooms would make it harder to swallow.

The NFL wanted its employees to be exempt from the increased bed tax for up to a year before the game, the Miami Herald reported earlier. Apparently, that's a standard request for communities wanting to host a Super Bowl.

The actual amount the NFL would have saved by not paying the hotel tax isn't as important as the troubling precedent it sets, says Nikki Grossman, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. (Broward hotels would not be affected by the bed-tax increase. State law does not allow bed taxes raised in one county to be spent in another.)

"My concern is the next group that comes along will want to be entitled (to a waiver), and rightfully so," Grossman told the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board.

"It sets a precedent."

It is also something that wouldn't sit well with voters, who are going to need a powerful sales job before they approve sending tax money to billionaire Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, who has promised to pay more than half the renovation costs himself.

The last time the Super Bowl was in South Florida, in 2010, the NFL's request to be exempted from the hotel tax was also denied.

But every year, the game gets bigger, and with more cities competing to host the Super Bowl, which comes with a powerful economic impact, the NFL asked again..

"They have a commodity everybody wants to buy," Grossman said.

Interestingly, lawmakers outside of South Florida appear amenable to giving the Dolphins up to $90 million in sales-tax rebates over 30 years, as long as the bed-tax increase is passed. Florida Senate President Dan Gaetz has told the Sun Sentinel that the stadium bill has no shot without the local referendum.

The Miami-Dade legislative delegation, which must answer to local voters, is more divided on whether to support the tax incentives that would finance almost half the renovations. According to the Herald, the Miami-Dade delegation is essentially split on whether to approve the incentives.

This Editorial Board supports the bed-tax increase for stadium renovations because of the economic boost it would give the area and the jobs that will come with it. But the Dolphins face a tough task in selling the plan to voters.

If the NFL keeps making requests, the team's pitch to voters will get a lot tougher.